Directional detection of light dark matter with polar materials
Abstract
We consider the direct detection of dark matter (DM) with polar materials, where single production of optical or acoustic phonons gives an excellent reach to the scattering of sub-MeV DM for both scalar and vector mediators. Using density functional theory, we calculate the material-specific matrix elements, focusing on GaAs and sapphire, and show that DM scattering in an anisotropic crystal such as sapphire features a strong directional dependence. For example, for a DM candidate with mass 40 keV and relic abundance set by freeze-in, the daily modulation in the interaction rate can be established at 90% C.L. with a gram year of exposure. Nonthermal dark photon DM in the meV–eV mass range can also be effectively absorbed in polar materials.
Additional Information
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3. (Received 24 September 2018; published 27 December 2018) We thank Matt Pyle for collaboration on related work and for useful discussions. We also thank Florian Altvater, Jonah Haber, Rafael Lang, Mikhail Malkov, Jeffrey Neaton, and Tom Melia for useful discussions. S. K., S. G., and K. Z. are supported by the DoE under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, and S. K. is also supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants No. PHY-1316783 and No. PHY-1002399. This work was performed in part at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. PHY-1607611 and at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF PHY-1748958. It also used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center and the Molecular Foundry, which are supported by the Office of Science of the DoE under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.Attached Files
Published - PhysRevD.98.115034.pdf
Submitted - 1807.10291.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 96438
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190613-164152031
- SCOAP3
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- PHY-1316783
- NSF
- PHY-1002399
- NSF
- PHY-1607611
- NSF
- PHY-1748958
- NSF
- Created
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2019-06-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field